The Congress of Peru has archived this Friday the bill presented by the Government of the country and with which it sought to reform the Constitution to call general elections for October 2023, all this before the blockade of Parliament to agree on an electoral advance.
With 11 votes in favor, 10 against and one abstention, the Congressional Constitution Commission has not allowed the measure to be voted on in plenary session of Congress, since the necessary 14 votes have not been reached, as reported. The Republic’.
The commission, chaired by the Fujimorista Hernando Guerra García, has rejected the proposal appealing to article 78 of the Magna Carta, which states that it cannot present the same proposal on the same subject until the next annual session, referring to a similar initiative. which was already dismissed in this legislature by the plenary session of Congress.
“The same proposal or another on the same subject may not be presented until the next annual session, unless half plus one of the legal number of congressmen so agree,” recalled one of the members of the Constitution Commission, according to the aforementioned newspaper.
In this way, a project to advance elections cannot be debated until the first legislature of the new annual session begins next July, so it is now up to the congressmen to agree on an electoral advance.
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So far, the benches have only managed to agree on the early calling of elections, which would take place in April 2024. However, when the vote had to be confirmed, the president of Peru, Dina Bolaurte, urged Congress to bring forward the elections to 2023, as demanded by the demonstrators in the protests.
Since then, none of the proposals from the different benches has gone ahead. Among other reasons, the left demands that the electoral call be linked to the holding of a referendum to establish a Constituent Assembly, an idea that the right rejects.
Last Thursday, the Andean Parliament postponed for the third time the vote on the early call for elections.
Peru is plunged into a deep political crisis after the removal of former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, who announced on December 7 the dissolution of the Andean Parliament and the establishment of an emergency government.
After the arrest of the former president, tens of thousands of people have come out to protest in various parts of the country to demand the resignation of Boluarte, the dissolution of Congress and the urgent call for presidential elections. More than 60 people have lost their lives in the riots between protesters and security forces.